Most of the fights have been over whether hobbits were truly a distinct species given their small size or just diseased humans, or whether creatures with their small brains could have used tools. But the latest skirmish appears in the current Journal of Human Evolution, where John Trueman of the Australian National University (ANU) drags the puny pre-human species which stood less than four feet tall and went extinct more than 12,000 years ago into a fight over whether researchers should depict humanity's origins as a family tree.

Christian-based materials dominate a growing home-school education market that encompasses more than 1.5 million students in the U.S. And for most home-school parents, a Bible-based version of the Earth's creation is exactly what they want. Federal statistics from 2007 show 83% of home-schooling parents want to give their children "religious or moral instruction."